Your letters

In his article about measures to prevent forced marriage ('We can rid Britain of forced marriages', Comment, last week), Damian Green neglects to mention the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act which, having received cross-party support, gained royal assent last month.

This means courts will have the power to make injunctions to protect the victim and to prevent such marriages from taking place. If someone breaches an order, they can be arrested and brought to court for contempt.

It is an important element of a much wider programme of work already under way by the government's Forced Marriage Unit to raise awareness of the problem and give guidance to statutory agencies about what they can and should do to support victims. Bridget Prentice MPParliamentary Under Secretary of State Ministry of Justice London SW1

Damian Green conflates - but with the ethnocentricity typical of so many Conservative ideas - two distinct ideas: that forced marriages are wrong; and that holding them to be wrong is a peculiarly British virtue. But it is wrong in Pakistan and Bangladesh too. It is wrong everywhere.

His position would be like Bangaldeshis saying that sending armies into far-flung places and bombing the living daylights out of them is wrong and recognising it is a peculiarly Bangladeshi virtue which the British do not understand. So to make this an argument for Britishness is silly at best and vicious at worst. Chakravarthi Ram-PrasadLancaster

Is this the real face of Islam?

How right Andrew Anthony is about the way Channel 4's Undercover Mosque programme has been dealt with by the West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service ('When did the police start collaring television?' Comment, last week).

As a white, Birmingham-born, UK woman who has lived in this city for 27 years and has been in a relationship with a Muslim man for three of them, the programme came as a shock.

I needed to know whether my boyfriend went along with the extremist views being expressed by the preachers in the programme. At first, he said he had no truck with the condescending attitudes towards women (that's putting it mildly) and we laughed at the suggestion that by associating with me, he had virtually cut himself off from his faith. However, after talking to fellow Muslims and listening to a local radio phone-in, he changed his view completely and questioned whether Undercover Mosque had 'cut and pasted' videotape to the extent that Abu Usamah's teachings had been taken out of context.

I mentioned that the programme would have to be edited, but I believe the rantings I witnessed on TV flowed without any interference.

I now wonder what Muslims really think of someone like me, including people I have felt very close to. Name withheldBirmingham

A tale of two Brixtons

The article 'Drugs, Guns... and Urban Cool' (Property, last week) about Brixton was offensive, naive and elitist.

It quoted Stuart Hopson-Jones, the owner of two nightspots: 'There are constant negative connotations in the media that Brixton is a centre for the drugs trade, guns and knife violence.'

There are also constant and equally damaging stories about how hip Brixton is if you are young and wealthy. What I hear in Brixton is a tale of two cities. Mr Hopson-Jones likely sees a very different Brixton from an average younger Londoner on, for instance, the Moorlands estate. There is, in fact, a huge drugs trade in this area, but it is one the Hopson-Joneses of this world can largely ignore.

Most of the middle- to upper-middle classes living locally do not integrate. They live lives separated by both race and class, often surrounded by poverty and deprivation that is more than just monetary. This is diversity-lite Paul BakaliteBrixton, south London

Rap should take the rap

Rafael Behr's outright rejection of the possibility that rap music might contribute to gun crime ('Watch out - the state is after your hard drive', Opinion, last week) displays an ignorance of basic psychology.

It has been known since at least the Sixties that people, especially the young, tend to imitate behaviour advocated by high-status role models; numerous studies have shown a link between the portrayal of violence in the media and actual violence.

The fact that rap lyrics may reflect genuine social conditions is irrelevant; what matters is the spirit in which such material is presented. Stephen BamfordSheffield

No licences to kill

I would like to correct an assertion in your article headlined 'British firm under scrutiny for export of Bosnian guns to Iraq' (News, last week).

It suggests British arms brokers outside the UK who supply arms to embargoed destinations are somehow immune from UK trade licensing. There is no such loophole.

No trade control licences were issued in 2005 for any trafficking and brokering activities involving the supply of arms from Bosnia to Iraq. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, which enforces the licensing controls, is aware of the allegations made in your article, and is making further inquiries. Malcolm WicksMinister of State Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform London SW1

Go north, Eurostar

Mary Riddell is right: the government should back our railways more ('Let the train put transport back on track', Comment, last week). A glorious opportunity opens up in November with the opening of St Pancras International station in London.

Eurostar will operate from there, and by electrifying the tracks to Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham and Derby, its services could go as far as Sheffield and Leeds. Paul KingChesterfield, Derbyshire

Giant Redwood? Not exactly

It's official: the Conservatives do think the British people are stupid ('Tories plan to make £14bn savings in radical move to slash red tape', front page, last week).

First, they suggest Boris 'Joker' Johnson as mayor of London. Now, they want to 'release business' from obligations such as paying decent wages and offering reasonable conditions. And this when your lead story concerns one result of another Tory reform: 'Scandal of filthy hospital kitchens'.

It's appropriate that the report is from John Redwood, a Thatcherite who even most Tories realised was from another planet. David ReedLondon NW3

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